The camera was on a tripod and didn't move. When I did the crossfades, the only thing that seemed to move was the subject.

I'll try the wipe right now. I never thought of that, as I thought it'd be too jarring, but I'll give it a shot.

Thank you.

You don't have any cutaways you can use to cover the cut?

Close ups of pictures on the wall, sign on the door, books on the shelves, things on the desk, your subject's hands, etc.?

If not, I'd favor a 15-frame fade to black and back up over any kind of dissolve or fade.

The way I have handled this scenario is to do a simple cross-fade and use pan/crop to enlarge (zoom) the clip that you are fading into. I can get away with this because most of my projects are SD, but I always shoot all my footage in HD. I can easily zoom in quite a bit without loosing definition. If you don't have HD footage, you can experiment with a slight amount of zoom to see if the loss in resolution is acceptable to you.

If a turning page FX is too much, you can try a freeze frame with fadein over it.

i agree with Brian.. cutaways,,
if you are set on or have to use some kind of transition , I'd use a an audio effect with it,, woosh etc

Not many cutaways. This was a single camera shoot, and I was interviewing a bunch of 80 year old guys for my Dad's eightieth birthday. Once I got the camera running, I sat to the side and tried not to mess with it, because that would really interrupt their train of thought. I've used some different stills that I have, that fit the stories they were telling (like when they enlisted in the Navy, etc.) but in the middle of a story, when I have 10-15 seconds that I have to cut, I don't want to shift the focus from the story. I'll try the fade to black. That sounds like it might work.

Also, keep in mind that I'm not a professional, just a regular-old home user, and I likely made some mistakes when I set this up and shot it.

Thanks for the help.

Keith

A lot depends on whether you want to call attention to the cut. I've seen lots of "edgy style" interviews (camera moving all the time, you know the style) where they purposely use flash transitions or other fairly violent "in your face" effects at the points where they are covering a jump cut.

* Use some Stills of your father

* Got any Video/8mm historic stuff for B-roll?

* Listen to what they are talking about and find some stills fo that"When we went to Washington, he made us . . . "

* Bob always makes us larf! Stock footage of larfing people!

* Use stills of "talker" over some meaningful phrase. Maybe a glint in the eye . .. !

* "Bob had a dog" . .. .

Much to do here.

g

Grazie's right. A lot of opportunity to get creative with the B-Roll, especially if you have access to archival stills, old home movies, photos, etc. Of course, if you're shooting a lot of interviews, you'll want to do the same for everybody. Might be a bit of work, but you'd end up with a much more visually interesting and nuanced piece.

If that's more than you're ready to tackle, do you still have access to the room where you shot the interviews? If so, you could shoot some cutaways of inanimate objects in the room. Just do your best to make sure the lighting conditions are similar.

You didn't make any mistakes, it's an issue that has no easy solution. You shoot a talking head, you need to edit out bits and yet keep the flow of the dialogue. Typically you cut to the audio so the timing is correct but then what to do with the vision. I've yet to see any simple answer. Using a dissolve I find disturbing to watch, just a plain cut can be less distracting but still odd because there's a small jump in only one part of the frame.
You might think you'd have done better if you had two cameras so you could cut to a wide shot, not certain that makes the task any easier either. Using cutaways is fine but this could change the story. That's where we need to be careful of what we do as editors.

Bob.

Nice summary, Bob.

"Movie making is problem solving."
I don't remember who said it, but they're words to live by.

You find the best solution that solves the problem with whatever resources you have available.

you could create a transition with the NAVY logo or some other graphic.

If they have old photos, you could work this look into the style of the piece. Make it look like a PBS documentary. Even if the photos only show one of the speakers talking, it still will show them aging and probably work for the piece.

Are you set on having each interviewee speak, one at a time, from beginning to end, in sequence?

If you decide to intercut them, so Ensign Jones speaks for a bit, then Ensign Smith, then Ensign Jones again, you may give yourself some more flexibility to work around the jump cuts. Of course, it's also a very different style.

There's a lot of good suggestions in this thread. Please let us know which one you pick and how it works out.

Maybe give this a shot:

Create a "look" that has the video shrunken down a bit and maybe panned off to the left over a sepia style background, maybe a jump back or something. You could even give it a bit of a 3d effect, you get the idea. With this second "look" established you can cut back and forth, even dissolve back and forth with impunity. On the jump cuts just cut to the "look" and then cut or dissolve back after a bit. Or cut to the "look" before the jump cut and cut/dissolve to the normal shot out of the "look" -

Hope this helps

Great thread!

IMO, a flash dissolve or blur dissolve (Sony Flash, Sony Dissolve) fixes this problem. It hides the visual jump you get with other types of dissolves.

Bob, you pretty accurately summed up my dilemma. Thanks, it's encouraging knowing it's not just me.

Brian, I did a little of what you said. I've also used stills to cover cuts... as wells as a quick linear wipe.... pretty much everything I could think of. So far, it's depended on the instance, but sometimes one method seems to be less obtrusive than others. No real science to it.

Glenn, I've never tried either one that you suggested. I'll try it tomorrow... when my eyes un-blur. Thanks.

Thanks to everyone. This forum is a tremendous resource to those like me who always seem to have more questions than answers. When I get this beast done, I'll post parts for you to see... something I promised myself I'd never do!

Thanks to all.

Keith

When you cut something someone has said you may either try to hide the cut or draw attention to it. In a documentary or half-documentary you might hide cuts that were caused by coughs or unintended stuff.
But if you cut something the person wanted to say, it is only fair to make it visible. Fair to the person, fair to the viewers.
You have had many good suggestions on how you could do that. My advise is to keep it simple (and quick) and stick to the same method for the same type of cuts. That way you can signal to the viewers that this is a time-jump but this is a new chapter etc.
Tor

I've seen on TV that they now often use a fractional second flash transition when faced with such a problem. Can't say it looks so great but if that's what the pros use...

"Can't say it looks so great but if that's what the pros use... "

Ugh. No thanks, I'd like my work to rise above that, somehow.

Just 'cause "ElimiDate" uses whooshes, heart-shaped wipes, cartoon "talking" balloons and graphical arrows pointing to human erogenous zones, doesn't mean I have to.

I second Grazie, this is one of the most interesting threads for a longtime - I learnt a lot. Even better than OT!

What makes it so interesting and vital is it goes to the core of what we do as editors. It's rather easy to change the story without even realising what we've done in the quest to make the story easier on the eye.